Tripping through Vegas with Hunter S. Thompson

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

A Savage Journey To The Heart of the American Dream

By Hunter S. Thompson,

Originally published by Random House Inc. 1972

This book has been on my must-read list for years, and now that I’ve finished it, I can say it’s been worth the wait. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a strange and curious book that belongs to an era in American culture that was summed up in Timothy Leary’s famous phrase, “turn on, tune in and drop out.”

Part memoir, part reportage and part travelogue, Fear and Loathing is Hunter S. Thompson’s (1937 - 2005) attempt to examine American attitudes towards drugs, money, success and failure in the glitzy heart of Las Vegas. To a large extent, the story is also a myth-building exercise for Thompson, who (as I understand it) regularly cast himself as a renegade in his non-fiction tales and in his life as well.

The story starts off with Thompson being sent to Las Vegas in 1971 to cover the Mint 400 car race featuring motorcycles and dune buggies. Thompson descends on Vegas in a red Chevrolet convertible, accompanied by a friend (his attorney), along with an ample stash of drugs, including marijuana, mescaline, LSD, uppers, downers, ether and tequila. The pair of miscreants stumble around town, stoned out of their minds, laying waste to hotel suites, cars, casinos, bars, credit cards and anyone unlucky enough to stand in their way. How they avoided being arrested and thrown in jail is one of the unexplained mysteries of this zany tale.

On the heels of the short-lived Mint 400 assignment, as he’s leaving Vegas, Thompson is given another assignment to stay in town to cover the National District Attorneys’ Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The ironies of a drug-addled journalist reporting on a drug conference were as thick as the marijuana smoke that seeps from the pages of this thin book. Thompson’s encounter with the maid in his hotel room, where he pretends to be a detective, is worth the price of the book alone.

Thompson’s writing style is anything but linear. He writes in a choppy, stream of consciousness narrative, flitting from scene to scene with the attention span of a crack addict.  Wherever the action is, that’s where Thompson is, too; he inserts himself willy-nilly as a protagonist in most of the scenes, as did Tom Wolfe in many of his brilliant essays from the 1960s and ‘70s. Thompson and Wolfe were pioneers of a writing style dubbed the New Journalism, where authors adopt techniques of the novel into their reporting.

In Fear and Loathing, Thompson is capable of good, clear writing, and there are passages that jump off the page in their ability to enlighten and entertain the reader.  For all of his rambling, erratic prose, you have to hand it to Thompson: his drunken, drugged-out escapades make for some colourful prose, and his observations on cultural trends are as sharp as a tack:

You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning….And that, I think, was the handle – that sense of inevitable victory of the forces of Good and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting – on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave…. 

My final verdict on Fear and Loathing was that it was quick, amusing and quite funny at times. Despite a narrative that often meanders, and the author’s propensity for ingesting enough drugs and alcohol that would kill other mere mortals, Fear and Loathing successfully recreates a time when America was struggling to understand drug culture and the decade that gave rise to it.

Elmore Leonard hits a bullseye with Killshot

Killshot

A novel by Elmore Leonard

(1989, William Morrow and Company, Inc.)

Elmore Leonard has been writing novels since the 1950s and is widely considered to be America’s pre-eminent crime novelist. After reading only my second Leonard novel, Killshot, it’s easy to see why he is held in such high esteem.

In Killshot, we meet a hired hit man nicknamed Blackbird (aka The Bird), who is sent from Toronto to Detroit to kill an aging mobster. After the hit, things get interesting. The Bird meets up with a not-too-bright ex-con, Richie Nix, who is about to extort $10,000 from a Michigan realtor. The plan quickly goes awry, and The Bird and Richie find themselves in deadly pursuit of the man who thwarted their plans.

Leonard is an absolute master of dialogue and fast-paced action, and in Killshot, he depicts a world that is seedy, desperate and violent, a place where hit men and ex-cons move comfortably from one act of violence to another. But with Leonard, acts of violence are a means of advancing the plot and are often infused with elements of black humour. Here is Richie holding up a convenience store:

The trick now was to do both almost at once. Richie raised the shotgun high enough to aim it at the girl and saw her drop the magazine as he said, ‘This’s your big day, honey. Empty out that cash drawer for me in a paper bag and set it on the counter. And some gum. Gimme a few packs of that bubble gum, too.’

Richie is always chewing gum and blowing bubbles, a characteristic that adds a comic element to his psychopathic nature. He also spends a good deal of time jabbering away and getting under the Bird’s skin. The uneasy relationship between these two outsiders is fraught with tension, laughter, and suspense.

But it’s not just the criminals and misfits that Leonard portrays so brilliantly. The two characters drawn into this bizarre plot, Wayne and Carmen Colson, are a middle-aged married couple on the straight and narrow, who work hard and love each other, but who are drawn into a deadly cat and mouse game against their will.  Wayne and Carmen are forced into survival mode to elude their trackers, and as the story unfolds, the chemistry between them is just as full of subtlety and nuance as the chemistry between the Bird and Richie.

The pacing of Killshot is quick and frenetic. Leonard is great at building suspense through non-stop action and concise dialogue. For anyone who has not read Elmore Leonard, Killshot is a great place to start. This novel demonstrates the author’s skill at developing believable characters and throwing them into circumstances that are beyond their control, with tragic-comic results.

It’s definitely worth a read.

Lincoln: A Man Who Belongs To The Ages

Team of Rivals, The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

 by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006, Simon and Shuster Paperbacks)

In Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin presents a complete portrait of one of the most enduring and captivating figures in American political life, a politician who played a hugely significant role in shaping American history and its way of life for generations.

Goodwin does a marvelous job developing the story of Lincoln’s life and circumstances, starting from his impoverished upbringing in rural Kentucky to his career as a circuit lawyer in Illinois to his eventual election to public office and the Presidency. But it’s Lincoln’s term as President that provides the most compelling aspects of this book, a period when competing political factions were at work leading up to, and during, the Civil War.

In these pages, Lincoln is presented as a compassionate, rational, well-spoken and eminently likable man, a political aspirant who appears awkward and fumbling at times, but whose deep humanity and purity of heart eventually win over skeptics and opponents. He’s a man who holds the highest hopes for himself and his fledgling nation and never loses faith when the going gets rough. As the title suggests, this book also explores the lives of Lincoln’s contemporaries, including his chief political rivals and adversaries, some of whom would go on to become members of his Cabinet and close confidants.

Goodwin demonstrates historical writing at its best, meaning at its most accessible. The tone of this book is formal, straightforward and measured. She draws upon vast resources of personal letters, diaries, correspondence, newspapers reports and government archives to give an almost play-by-play account of Lincoln and the people close to him during this turbulent and divisive period in American life, when slavery and secession threatened to tear the Union apart.

All of the key moments in Lincoln’s life (his election to the Illinois General Assembly, his winning the Presidency, his marriage to Mary Todd, the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, The Gettysburg Cemetery Address) are rendered with a sharp and unbiased eye; these important moments are made all the more riveting with Goodwin’s talent at weaving multiple narratives into the mix.   

Throughout Team of Rivals, I was fascinated by the sheer volume of correspondence among politicians, soldiers, generals, civil leaders and socialites. Everybody was writing letters and keeping diaries and angling to be heard. I was also intrigued by various modes and speed of communication in the mid 19^th century. For instance, during Lincoln’s inaugural Presidential address in 1860, it took seven days (via pony express) for a transcript of the address to reach the west coast so that newspapers in California could report on it. To demonstrate how starved people were for information back then, Lincoln would spend countless hours in the Washington telegraph office, anxiously awaiting the latest news from the battlefields.

A final thought about Team of Rivals is how effective Goodwin is at fleshing out Lincoln the man. Abraham Lincoln was a man who loved his family and friends; and who loved his work and his country. He was a man who aspired to the highest principles of human conduct, both in and out of office. At the conclusion of this book, I was reminded of a quote by Aristotle: "Do not listen to those who exhort you to keep to modest human thoughts.  No.  Live, instead, according to the highest thing in you. For small though it may be in power and worth, it is high above the rest."

Lincoln did live modestly and unpretentiously, but his thoughts, ideas and dreams were of a higher order than most. In Team of Rivals, those hopes and dreams – and the man’s great legacy – remain firmly intact and will continue to inspire.

Rolling Stone’s backstage pass to Led Zeppelin

Rolling Stone Collectors Edition

Led Zeppelin, The Ultimate Guide to Their Music & Legend

During the 1970s, Led Zeppelin was the definitive heavy metal group of the 1970s, a band that attained legendary status among its millions of devoted followers (myself included). In this Collectors Edition, Rolling Stone has reached into its archives and chosen a series of feature articles, interviews, photographs and album guides to create a compelling and highly readable tribute.

Although this Edition is primarily aimed at hard-core Led Zeppelin fans, it would appeal to any rock fan (casual or hard-core) interested in knowing about the group’s roots and what contributed to its enormous worldwide success.

For me, Led Zeppelin was always about the music, and less about the band’s often-reported antics and excesses on the road. Whether it was a hard-driving number like “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” a melodic ballad like “Thank You” or an audacious experimental piece like “Kashmir,” Zeppelin boldly went where no band had gone before.

In these pages, both Robert Plant and Jimmy Page come across as sensitive, passionate and articulate when discussing their respective musical styles and influences. Here’s Jimmy Page speaking to journalist Cameron Crowe in a RS interview from 1975: 

“The term ‘genius’ gets used far too loosely in rock & roll. When you hear the melodic structures of what classical musicians put together and you compare it to that of a rock & roll record, there’s a hell of a long way rock & roll has to go. There’s a certain standard in classical music that allows the application of the term ‘genius,’ but you’re treading on thin ice if you start applying it to rock & rollers. The way I see it, rock & roll is folk music. Street music. It isn’t taught in school. It has to be picked up. You don’t find geniuses in street musicians, but that doesn’t mean to say you can’t be really good. You get as much out of rock & roll artistically as you put into it. There’s nobody who can teach you. You’re on your own, and that’s what I find so fascinating about it.”

For Led Zeppelin, it was all about the musical innovation and following their bliss, at least in the recording studio and during their live performances. This was no pop band intent on repeating formulaic tunes with every new album. Rather, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham and John Paul Jones were virtuoso performers who wanted to reinvent themselves all the time; they seem not to have cared about achieving top 40 status on any playlist (indeed, the band’s most famous song, Stairway to Heaven, was never released as a single). 

For Zeppelin fans, it was about immersing yourself in the experience: listening to “Zeppelin IV” or “Physical Graffiti” in a friend’s basement or in the car. The music was bold, rapacious, rebellious, sexual and subversive. If you were listening to Zeppelin, you were probably engaging in other recreational pursuits that parents disapproved of. Zeppelin spoke to a generation that wasn't ready to cut its hair and punch a clock. The band had attitude and the talent to back it up, and that was a large part of its appeal. Zep was going to do things its way, and to hell with what anybody thought.

For those young enough to have enjoyed Led Zeppelin during the band’s prime, this Collectors Edition will evoke memories of time spent listening to a band that became synonymous with the 1970s counter-culture. For those who weren’t around back then, the publication will provide a thrilling snapshot of the life and times of one of the most creative, versatile and influential rock bands of all time.

Henry Miller’s tale of soulful redemption

The Colossus of Maroussi, a travelogue by Henry Miller (originally published in 1941), Penguin Books.

If ever a book sprang fourth impulsively and viscerally from an author’s imagination, it was The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller (1891 – 1980). This rambling, discursive travelogue describes a brief holiday the author took to Greece in the months leading up to the Second World War.

Although much of The Colossus is imaginative, the object of Miller’s escapades is deeply rooted in Greece’s past. He visits Corfu, Crete, Corinth, Delphi, the Acropolis and other mythic places throughout the Greek Isles, and describes these hallowed grounds with humility and awe.

With Miller, if something or someone captures his imagination, he will spend several paragraphs (or pages) describing the object of his affection. Early on in his travels, the author is introduced to a Renaissance man named Katsimbalis (for whom this book is dedicated) and he is immediately smitten. Miller writes:

“…I listened spellbound, enchanted by every phrase he let drop. I saw that he was made for the monologue, like Cendrars, like Moricand the astrologer. I like the monologue even more than the duet, when it is good. It’s like watching a man write a book expressly for you: he writes it, reads it aloud, acts it, revises it, savours it, enjoys it, enjoys your enjoyment of it, and then tears up and throws it to the winds.”

Miller has said that Colossus was his favourite book to write. If I had to guess why, it’s probably because he imposed no limitations on his subject matter. Although the book’s tone is quite confessional, Miller combines the fiery eloquence of a preacher with the solemn revelations of a monk. His language is colourful, luminous and riveting. In his journey, and in the re-telling of it, Miller gives his imagination free reign to wander down abandoned roads and pathways in search of enlightenment and beauty.

For Miller, this journey was a kind of soulful redemption, as well as a personal indictment against the world powers that were girding for war, against big corporations that had co-opted man’s soul in the pursuit of profits, and against the many false Gods, religions and edifices that man has chosen to blindly worship.

In Colossus, Miller is attempting to find his inner self. He is a man desperately trying to understand the world around him and figure out his place in that world. In seeking answers to life’s big questions, it’s interesting that he chose to focus on Greece, a diminished power on the world stage, a country that lives more in myth and legend than it does in the modern world. 

But in casting his gaze on small places and people, Miller arrives at some big truths. Near the end of his tale, Miller sums up what he has learned while in Greece:

“I became deflated, restored to proper human proportions, ready to accept my lot and prepared to give of all that I have received…I give this record of my journey not as a contribution to human knowledge, because my knowledge is small and of little account, but as a contribution to human experience.” 

My final take on The Colossus of Maroussi is that it's a wildly entertaining tale that belongs in the pantheon of great travel literature.

Nora Ephron – A Writer Worth Remembering

Nora Ephron is one of those writers who I've known about for years and yet I’ve never got around to reading – until recently, that is, when I breezed through her final essay collection, entitled I Remember Nothing. When I say breeze, I mean breeze, as I finished the book in less than two hours and was left wanting more.

Ephron is known primarily as a screenwriter who wrote such popular films as When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, Julie and Julia, and others. She got her start in the writing business working as a journalist at Newsweek and the New York Post. 

In I Remember Nothing, Ephron recounts a series of anecdotes about her life and career. Her writing style is witty, intelligent and laugh-out-loud funny (her humour is quite self-deprecating). She is one of those writers who could, and did, transform the sad and tragic elements of her life into cinematic drama, often into comedy.

In this slim collection, Ephron has plenty to say about the aging process, and the deterioration of the mind and body once a person hits a certain age. At 69, she finds herself forgetting people’s names at parties, lamenting the breakdown of specific body parts, and fearing more of the same in the years ahead (sadly, Ephron passed away on June 26, 2012.)

In I Remember Nothing, Ephron takes on other subjects with humour and empathy, including computer games, being addicted to computer games, inheritance, professional failure, Christmas dinners, meat loaf, and going to the movies. I particularly enjoyed this observation about divorce:

"Of course, there are good divorces, where everything is civil, even friendly. Child support payments arrive. Visitations take place on schedule. Your ex-husband rings the doorbell and says on the other side of the threshold; he never walks in without knocking and helps himself to the coffee. In my next life I must get one of those divorces." 

My feeling at the end of I Remember Nothing is that I wish it contained more stories, more anecdotes, and more commentary on life. But there are other essay collections by Nora Ephron, and I will eagerly seek them out because she is worth reading, and worth remembering.

A Hell of a Woman is a hell of a ride

A Hell of a Woman, a novel by Jim Thompson (originally published in 1954)

Reprinted by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Edition (1984)

Jim Thompson (1906 – 1977) is a suspense writer who produced his best work during a prolific period between 1952 and 1955. Among the stories written during that time was A Hell of a Woman, which contains all of the classic noir elements of a Thompson novel: a sociopath narrator, plenty of hairpin plot turns, coarse language and the seedy underbelly of American life after World War II.

Part of the joy of a Jim Thompson novel is the rapid plot turns, and the language, which is harsh and crude. In A Hell of a Woman, Frank Dillon is a down-on-his-luck, door-to-door salesman during the 50s who plans to rescue a beautiful young woman from the clutches of her elderly aunt and steal $100,000 from the older woman. Frank’s internal dialogue is like a roller coaster ride of unfiltered thoughts. Here is Frank's initial description of the elderly aunt:

“The door flew open while I was still beating on it. I took one look around at this dame and moved back fast. It wasn’t the young one, the haunted-looking babe I’d seen peering through the curtains. This was an old biddy with a beak like a hawk and close-set, mean little eyes. She was about seventy – I don’t know how anyone could have got that ugly in less than seventy years – but she looked plenty hale and hearty. She was carrying a heavy cane, and I got the impression that she was all ready to use it. On me.” 

A Hell of a Woman is a wild romp of a story that has more twists and turns than a demolition derby, and is full of nasty surprises. You’ll often find yourself laughing out loud as Frank’s hapless scheme unravels with horrific and deadly consequences.

If A Hell of A Woman is your first introduction to Jim Thompson, you won’t be disappointed. Other Thompson novels that I’ve read (and recommend) include: The Killer Inside Me, Pop. 1280, Savage Night and The Grifters.